The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm, will conduct the study, which is expected to be completed in four to six months. In a statement the Fed said it expects the study’s results to “help inform its ongoing collaboration with the industry to enhance end-to-end payment security.”

"The vast number of participants and complex nature of the payments industry make it challenging to determine where the greatest opportunities exist for significantly mitigating fraud," said Ken Montgomery, the Federal Reserve's payments security strategy leader and chief operating officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. "We hope to bring greater insight to the challenge with a comprehensive view of payment fraud data and payment security vulnerabilities that will help inform next steps for ongoing industry collaboration."